Electronic storage of business information has become ubiquitous in today's business environment. Advances in electronic storage technology have made feasible the storage of vast amounts of electronic information as ever-larger storage capacity devices are introduced. In particular, as electronic storage densities increase and the cost of electronic storage decreases, businesses are eagerly adopting comprehensive electronic storage procedures for storing their business information. Additionally, the proliferation and widespread acceptance of electronic business transactions and communications has fueled significant demand for voluminous electronic storage capacity. Typically, businesses will store electronic information in electronic storage devices, often referred to as data repositories or data stores. A server device can store and maintain a database of electronic information in a data repository, and can communicate with other computing devices to share the electronic information with the other computing devices. For example, a user of a computing device, such as a laptop or desktop computer, may enter search criteria for searching a database, the computing device may communicate the search request to the server device, the server may formulate a query to search the database, and may communicate the results to the computing device for presentation to the user. The server device may control the addition, deletion, or modification of electronic information stored in the database.
Graphical user interfaces may be used to present database information to computer-system users. Because databases often contain large amounts of data, a sensible presentation scheme is desirable. One way of displaying database information to a user is to display a table of rows of data, where each row, or record, in the table represents a set of related data, and where each row in the table has the same structure. Tables can be read-only, meaning that the user is permitted to view the information in the table but is not permitted to modify the table or information in the table. Alternatively, tables can be editable, in which case a user may modify, add or delete information from the table. In one example, a user wishing to add a record of data to the table clicks on an “Add Row” selection button in the graphical user interface to add a new row to the table. In another example, a user first selects an “Insert” menu bar item to add a new row to the table. In each example, the user can then enter data into the new row. However, the user may find it disruptive to perform these additional actions, which may interrupt the user's flow in working with the database information and may adversely affect the user's ability to quickly add new data to the table.